Horton’s Great “But” Commission

I have to say I am greatly impressed by at least one part of a paragraph in Dr. Michael Horton’s new book The Gospel Commission: Recovering God’s Strategy for Making Disciples. He begins his chapters with the important recognition that Jesus’ great commission to the disciples (Matt. 28:18–20) begins with an equally great announcement—an announcement we here at American Vision have emphasized many times: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (28:18).

As initially enthused, however, it was with equally deep disappointment that I read on as Dr. Horton spent the rest of his 300 pages denuding this very message until it means, for him, nearly the exact opposite of what it says. Well, yes, “All power” “in heaven” “and on earth” . . . BUT . . . .

This is no exaggeration. Only a couple of pages after his proclamations of the crown rights of King Jesus, Lord Sovereign over all things including the kings of this earth, Horton introduces chapter 2 with the first bite of a waffle: “Jesus possesses all authority in heaven and on earth,” and here it comes . . . “but what does that mean for us here and now?” (35). This clear single sentence of Jesus’ apparently needs to be qualified with 284 pages from Horton before we can truly know what it means.

Why that is considered biblical or superior to the alternatives is the real question.

The great majority of evangelical-conservative Reformed scholars I know of (like the big-guns I listed above) would turn the question around, and ask why confusing Old Testament Moral and Civil Law (as since the book of Acts the Church is, and has been, only accountable to the Moral) is considered by some to be Reformed?

Why for example do we suffer a Witch to live (Exod. 22:18)? Or were the residents of Salem, Mass., right?

The true children of Calvin and the other magisterial Reformers always understood that the civil magistrate had a duty to enforce both tables of the moral law. E.g., Calvin wrote:

But we shall have a fitter opportunity of speaking of the use of civil government. All we wish to be understood at present is, that it is perfect barbarism to think of exterminating it, its use among men being not less than that of bread and water, light and air, while its dignity is much more excellent. Its object is not merely, like those things, to enable men to breathe, eat, drink, and be warmed (though it certainly includes all these, while it enables them to live together); this, I say, is not its only object, but it is, that no idolatry, no blasphemy against the name of God, no calumnies against his truth, nor other offences to religion, break out and be disseminated among the people; that the public quiet be not disturbed, that every man’s property be kept secure, that men may carry on innocent commerce with each other, that honesty and modesty be cultivated; in short, that a public form of religion may exist among Christians, and humanity among men. Let no one be surprised that I now attribute the task of constituting religion aright to human polity, though I seem above to have placed it beyond the will of man, since I no more than formerly allow men at pleasure to enact laws concerning religion and the worship of God, when I approve of civil order which is directed to this end—viz. to prevent the true religion, which is contained in the law of God, from being with impunity openly violated and polluted by public blasphemy. (Institutes, 4.20.3)

This was the common sentiment among the Reformers for many generations. True justice cannot be instituted among men without reference to our duties toward God. This sensibility seems to be lost on modern men who claim to be in the Reformed tradition.

While it may be that some have confused the details of the civil law of ancient Israel with the “general equity” of the same (WCF 19:4), ignoring the civil law and claiming that it no longer applies at all is just as great an evil (otherwise the WCF “general equity” clause is superfluous).

Are sabbath law (aka blue laws) once common in the States illegitimate? Is the moral law as summarized in all Ten Commandments the proper subject of just civil rule or no? (Of course Horton and some of his friends have radicalized things so far as to say that “natural law,” not the Bible, is the only tool available to a magistrate by which they may conduct their office.)

So I would turn back to your modern Reformers the question: by what teaching do you restrict the work of the civil magistrate to only the second table of the Law of God?

One more quote from Calvin:

The duty of magistrates, its nature, as described by the word of God, and the things in which it consists, I will here indicate in passing. That it extends to both tables of the law, did Scripture not teach, we might learn from profane writers; for no man has discoursed of the duty of magistrates, the enacting of laws, and the common weal, without beginning with religion and divine worship. Thus all have confessed that no polity can be successfully established unless piety be its first care, and that those laws are absurd which disregard the rights of God, and consult only for men. (Institutes, 4.20.9)

That is most certainly not the view of Horton and his Escondido friends.

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